What the article kind of dances around is that gun owners, or at least a significant segment of them, tend to be very political. Trying to explain this using pure economic theory is going to fall flat on its face because simple supply and demand doesn't take into account the ideology of those buying the goods.

There is a fairly large subset of gun owners who just *LOVE* to "knife perceived traitors in the back", so a gun store that relies on repeat customers has to tread lightly for fear of being perceived as a traitor by a large number of their customers. It's not like a gas station or a supermarket.

HoustonNick:Don't forget that DHS purchased 1.6 Billion rounds. Regardless of whether those purchases were or were not justified, the purchases did reduce the available ammunition supply.

No, they didn't. What they did was get a contract for a suppliers to provide "up to" that amount over five years. They reduced the amount recently.

The government purchases aren't reducing supply at all. This is almost all panic buying at a time when manufacturers slow down production as part of a normal cycle (less production in winter months due to less shooting). Combine the nutters with normal slowdowns and here you are.

I have 40 9mm bullets in my ammo box. For me, that is a five year supply. I shoot off a single magazine (8 bullets) once a year. I think that's good enough to stay familiar with the pistol. I sure hope this ammo shortage is all over with by 2018, because I'll be wanting to buy a box of ammo by then.

HoustonNick:Lucky LaRue: HoustonNick: Don't forget that DHS purchased 1.6 Billion rounds. Regardless of whether those purchases were or were not justified, the purchases did reduce the available ammunition supply.

I hope it was for the purpose of causing scarcity - that would be the best use of my tax dollars EVAR

I hope you still feel that way when your local Police Dept runs out of ammo.

If the idea of a shortage of ammo makes them just a bit more circumspect in their use of deadly force, well, I consider that a feature, not a bug.

HoustonNick:dr_blasto: HoustonNick: Don't forget that DHS purchased 1.6 Billion rounds. Regardless of whether those purchases were or were not justified, the purchases did reduce the available ammunition supply.

No, they didn't. What they did was get a contract for a suppliers to provide "up to" that amount over five years. They reduced the amount recently.

But they have purchased some of that 1.6 and it is a reduction of the available supply. Its pure match:

They're always buying ammo. shiat, we've been in two wars--where were all the 5.56 shortages when we were sending thousands of little bits of lead at insurgents on a daily basis?

The simplest answer is that because the natural production cycles slow down in winter, bad shiat happens in December and nutters panic and buy ammunition to stockpile in case of new restrictions causes shelves to be bare. This leads to other nutters noting the bare shelves and when they do see ammunition, they buy ALL of it. Other nutters notice it's become even harder to find ammo, so they buy palletloads. Wash, rinse, repeat.

dr_blasto:They're always buying ammo. shiat, we've been in two wars--where were all the 5.56 shortages when we were sending thousands of little bits of lead at insurgents on a daily basis?

There were some minor shortages of strictly military calibers like .223 Remington/5/56mm NATO and 9mm Parabellum back a few years ago but it was hardly noticeable because the two wars you mention weren't "small arms intensive", and the military was able to draw from a large stockpile it already had to smooth out the demand.

I hope you still feel that way when your local Police Dept runs out of ammo.

If the idea of a shortage of ammo makes them just a bit more circumspect in their use of deadly force, well, I consider that a feature, not a bug.

And what if an innocent victim - or the policie officer - gets killed - would you consider that a feature or a bug?

I'll throw it right back at you: What if someone innocent doesn't die or get injured because Officer Friendly doesn't empty his gun *TWICE* at a person reaching for their identification, or even someone innocent in the background?

Also, I said "a bit more circumspect in their use of deadly force", not "unarmed like a London Bobby".

dittybopper:dr_blasto: They're always buying ammo. shiat, we've been in two wars--where were all the 5.56 shortages when we were sending thousands of little bits of lead at insurgents on a daily basis?

There were some minor shortages of strictly military calibers like .223 Remington/5/56mm NATO and 9mm Parabellum back a few years ago but it was hardly noticeable because the two wars you mention weren't "small arms intensive", and the military was able to draw from a large stockpile it already had to smooth out the demand.

The estimates I've seen is the military used around 70mm rounds annually. Fighting insurgencies is small arms intensive--suppressing fire alone can expend a thousand rounds in short order while awaiting air support or whatever.

The simplest answer is that because the natural production cycles slow down in winter, bad shiat happens in December and nutters panic and buy ammunition to stockpile in case of new restrictions causes shelves to be bare. This leads to other nutters noting the bare shelves and when they do see ammunition, they buy ALL of it. Other nutters notice it's become even harder to find ammo, so they buy palletloads. Wash, rinse, repeat.

The government isn't buying .22LR; why can't you find that?

Lots of biased (e.g. "nutters") assumptions there.

Does liking to target practice and shoot competively make you a Nutter?What if you are a Liberal who likes to shoot, is the Liberal a Nutter?Are the Olympic Athletes who shoot Nutters?

I not sure why you can't find .22LR but from what I saw at the range, a lot of shooters switched to their .22s to reduce the cost (FYI, some articles have falsely stated that ammunition costs didn't increase. Point in fact they did but generally in the 10-20% per box range.). I know I started shooting my .22 more, but than all of a sudden I could find 9mm ammo everywhere, but no .22 ammo, so I switched back.

The other anomaly is that everyone, everywhere has shotgun shells - another product the Gov't isn't buying.

I hope you still feel that way when your local Police Dept runs out of ammo.

If the idea of a shortage of ammo makes them just a bit more circumspect in their use of deadly force, well, I consider that a feature, not a bug.

And what if an innocent victim - or the policie officer - gets killed - would you consider that a feature or a bug?

I'll throw it right back at you: What if someone innocent doesn't die or get injured because Officer Friendly doesn't empty his gun *TWICE* at a person reaching for their identification, or even someone innocent in the background?

Also, I said "a bit more circumspect in their use of deadly force", not "unarmed like a London Bobby".

I'm still wondering if you would call an innocent victim - or a police officer - getting killed a feature or a bug? I didn't see your answer.

dr_blasto:dittybopper: dr_blasto: They're always buying ammo. shiat, we've been in two wars--where were all the 5.56 shortages when we were sending thousands of little bits of lead at insurgents on a daily basis?

There were some minor shortages of strictly military calibers like .223 Remington/5/56mm NATO and 9mm Parabellum back a few years ago but it was hardly noticeable because the two wars you mention weren't "small arms intensive", and the military was able to draw from a large stockpile it already had to smooth out the demand.

The estimates I've seen is the military used around 70mm rounds annually. Fighting insurgencies is small arms intensive--suppressing fire alone can expend a thousand rounds in short order while awaiting air support or whatever.

But there weren't a heck of a lot of those sorts of battles going on, compared to historical anti-insurgency campaigns like Vietnam. The preferred weapon of the insurgency switched from the rifle to the IED.

vartian:HoustonNick: But they have purchased some of that 1.6 and it is a reduction of the available supply. Its pure match:

In advance, with plenty of notice. So you are saying bullet manufactures are incompetent.

No, they were caught off guard by the increased demand caused by the gun ban efforts of Obama, Biden, Feinstein, Bloomber, et al, plus the increased chance of success as a result of the horror at Sandy Hook. Admittedly, gun owners increased their ammo (and gun) purchases as a result, and the market was not prepared for either.

As indicated in one of my earlier posts - the purchases were by both Gov't and Private Citizens - and when all purchases increased, it reduced available supply.

FYI, its not like gun owners made up what Obama, Biden, Feinstein, Bloomberg, et al were doing, they were in fact trying to get new gun ban legislation passed. That caused gun owners to react before the legislation could get passed.

The simplest answer is that because the natural production cycles slow down in winter, bad shiat happens in December and nutters panic and buy ammunition to stockpile in case of new restrictions causes shelves to be bare. This leads to other nutters noting the bare shelves and when they do see ammunition, they buy ALL of it. Other nutters notice it's become even harder to find ammo, so they buy palletloads. Wash, rinse, repeat.

The government isn't buying .22LR; why can't you find that?

Lots of biased (e.g. "nutters") assumptions there.

Does liking to target practice and shoot competively make you a Nutter?What if you are a Liberal who likes to shoot, is the Liberal a Nutter?Are the Olympic Athletes who shoot Nutters?

I not sure why you can't find .22LR but from what I saw at the range, a lot of shooters switched to their .22s to reduce the cost (FYI, some articles have falsely stated that ammunition costs didn't increase. Point in fact they did but generally in the 10-20% per box range.). I know I started shooting my .22 more, but than all of a sudden I could find 9mm ammo everywhere, but no .22 ammo, so I switched back.

The other anomaly is that everyone, everywhere has shotgun shells - another product the Gov't isn't buying.

I don't state that people shooting are nutters. I am saying the paranoid people buying all the ammunition up just to stockpile tens of thousands of rounds for when 0bama comes to take their guns are nutters. They are nutters.

I'm an avid shooter. I own a few firearms; throughout the wars at their peak(s), I never had an issue feeding any of my rifles or pistols, most of which use common NATO rounds like 5.56 or 9mm.

On the subject of .22LR, most people would buy by the brick as it was so friggin cheap. It takes a while to load and fire that shiat. I'm sure people still have quite a bit, but I haven't seen it on a shelf since early December. Some of my other shooting sports friends tell me that they think that mess was because the zombie/survivalist/endofworld types bought metric ass-tons up to store for 12/21/12, the end of times shiat. Whatever the reason, the government isn't buying that shiat, yet none is available.

dittybopper:What the article kind of dances around is that gun owners, or at least a significant segment of them, tend to be very political. Trying to explain this using pure economic theory is going to fall flat on its face because simple supply and demand doesn't take into account the ideology of those buying the goods.

A large fraction of gun owners are willing to take severe action against those whom they consider "traitors". Witness what happened to Smith and Wesson when they signed the deal with the Clinton Administration, or what happened to Jim Zumbo when he called AR-15's "terrorist rifles", and even what happened to the Eastern States Outdoor Show, which was canceled due to boycotts after they announced a "no assault weapons" policy, and the parent company lost the biggest gun related show in the World, the SHOT Show, because of it.

There is a fairly large subset of gun owners who just *LOVE* to "knife perceived traitors in the back", so a gun store that relies on repeat customers has to tread lightly for fear of being perceived as a traitor by a large number of their customers. It's not like a gas station or a supermarket.

dittybopper:dr_blasto: dittybopper: dr_blasto: They're always buying ammo. shiat, we've been in two wars--where were all the 5.56 shortages when we were sending thousands of little bits of lead at insurgents on a daily basis?

There were some minor shortages of strictly military calibers like .223 Remington/5/56mm NATO and 9mm Parabellum back a few years ago but it was hardly noticeable because the two wars you mention weren't "small arms intensive", and the military was able to draw from a large stockpile it already had to smooth out the demand.

The estimates I've seen is the military used around 70mm rounds annually. Fighting insurgencies is small arms intensive--suppressing fire alone can expend a thousand rounds in short order while awaiting air support or whatever.

But there weren't a heck of a lot of those sorts of battles going on, compared to historical anti-insurgency campaigns like Vietnam. The preferred weapon of the insurgency switched from the rifle to the IED.

I hope you still feel that way when your local Police Dept runs out of ammo.

If the idea of a shortage of ammo makes them just a bit more circumspect in their use of deadly force, well, I consider that a feature, not a bug.

And what if an innocent victim - or the policie officer - gets killed - would you consider that a feature or a bug?

I'll throw it right back at you: What if someone innocent doesn't die or get injured because Officer Friendly doesn't empty his gun *TWICE* at a person reaching for their identification, or even someone innocent in the background?

Also, I said "a bit more circumspect in their use of deadly force", not "unarmed like a London Bobby".

I'm still wondering if you would call an innocent victim - or a police officer - getting killed a feature or a bug? I didn't see your answer.

Nor did I see yours.

You're begging the question: Your assumption is automatically that less use of deadly force = innocent victim or police officer killed. That's not necessarily the outcome, and you know it.

You're begging the question: Your assumption is automatically that less use of deadly force = innocent victim or police officer killed. That's not necessarily the outcome, and you know it.

Actually you entirely missing my point. You indicated that scarcity was a good thing - "I hope it was for the purpose of causing scarcity - that would be the best use of my tax dollars EVAR",and my question to you is whether you thought it would be a good thing if that scarcity caused an innocent victim or police officer to get killed ? - but you wouldn't answer.

As for your question, if scarcity prevents an innocent suspect from getting killed - that is great news. I am in favor of innocent persons not getting killed. Including innocent suspects, innocent victims, innocent police officers, innocent dogs, cats, etc.

dr_blasto:dittybopper: dr_blasto: dittybopper: dr_blasto: They're always buying ammo. shiat, we've been in two wars--where were all the 5.56 shortages when we were sending thousands of little bits of lead at insurgents on a daily basis?

There were some minor shortages of strictly military calibers like .223 Remington/5/56mm NATO and 9mm Parabellum back a few years ago but it was hardly noticeable because the two wars you mention weren't "small arms intensive", and the military was able to draw from a large stockpile it already had to smooth out the demand.

The estimates I've seen is the military used around 70mm rounds annually. Fighting insurgencies is small arms intensive--suppressing fire alone can expend a thousand rounds in short order while awaiting air support or whatever.

But there weren't a heck of a lot of those sorts of battles going on, compared to historical anti-insurgency campaigns like Vietnam. The preferred weapon of the insurgency switched from the rifle to the IED.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05687.pdf

I can easily see it doubling, but that doesn't necessarily contradict what I said. A traditional infantry-intensive anti-insurgency campaign in two countries could have easily quadrupled demand, or more.

Also, the increased demand for small arms ammo was for increased *TRAINING*, not actual warfighting, which dovetails nicely with my point. From your link:

DOD's increased requirements for small and medium caliber ammunition over the past several years are largely the result of increased weapons training requirements needed to support the Army's transformation to a more self-sustaining and lethal force

dittybopper:dr_blasto: dittybopper: dr_blasto: dittybopper: dr_blasto: They're always buying ammo. shiat, we've been in two wars--where were all the 5.56 shortages when we were sending thousands of little bits of lead at insurgents on a daily basis?

There were some minor shortages of strictly military calibers like .223 Remington/5/56mm NATO and 9mm Parabellum back a few years ago but it was hardly noticeable because the two wars you mention weren't "small arms intensive", and the military was able to draw from a large stockpile it already had to smooth out the demand.

The estimates I've seen is the military used around 70mm rounds annually. Fighting insurgencies is small arms intensive--suppressing fire alone can expend a thousand rounds in short order while awaiting air support or whatever.

But there weren't a heck of a lot of those sorts of battles going on, compared to historical anti-insurgency campaigns like Vietnam. The preferred weapon of the insurgency switched from the rifle to the IED.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05687.pdf

I can easily see it doubling, but that doesn't necessarily contradict what I said. A traditional infantry-intensive anti-insurgency campaign in two countries could have easily quadrupled demand, or more.

Also, the increased demand for small arms ammo was for increased *TRAINING*, not actual warfighting, which dovetails nicely with my point. From your link:

DOD's increased requirements for small and medium caliber ammunition over the past several years are largely the result of increased weapons training requirements needed to support the Army's transformation to a more self-sustaining and lethal force

True, training. I misstated the need; in the end, though, they may use IEDs, but we don't. Either way, that document shows how much was used/is expected to be needed.

Also, I'll note that using the military consumption of ammunition as part of the equation (which I did) was incorrect as the GAO notes the government makes its own ammo, the commercial market hasn't capacity to support their needs and they turned to international purchases to ensure they could keep stock as needed.

You're begging the question: Your assumption is automatically that less use of deadly force = innocent victim or police officer killed. That's not necessarily the outcome, and you know it.

Actually you entirely missing my point. You indicated that scarcity was a good thing - "I hope it was for the purpose of causing scarcity - that would be the best use of my tax dollars EVAR",and my question to you is whether you thought it would be a good thing if that scarcity caused an innocent victim or police officer to get killed ? - but you wouldn't answer.

Don't use double quotes unless you are actually directly quoting someone. I never said that. So right there, you're being dishonest.

As for your question, if scarcity prevents an innocent suspect from getting killed - that is great news. I am in favor of innocent persons not getting killed. Including innocent suspects, innocent victims, innocent police officers, innocent dogs, cats, etc.

So now will you answer my question.

Sure.

I'd look at both sides of the equation, and see what the net result is. If there are 10 fewer innocents/cops killed because an ammo shortage prevents criminals from shooting, but that same ammo shortage causes 5 deaths that wouldn't have happened because the police didn't have enough ammo, you still come out ahead.

Of course. to some people a net gain of 5 lives is a bad thing, because *COPS*! *INNOCENT VICTIMS*!.

In other words, you'd have to demonstrate to me that there is an actual net negative value before I would reconsider my position.

Yeah, but think about how IEDs are used: They are remotely detonated. Most often, those effected by the IED don't have anything or anyone to shoot *AT*. That's why we don't shoot as much as in a traditional counterinsurgency.

I hope you still feel that way when your local Police Dept runs out of ammo.

If the idea of a shortage of ammo makes them just a bit more circumspect in their use of deadly force, well, I consider that a feature, not a bug.

And what if an innocent victim - or the policie officer - gets killed - would you consider that a feature or a bug?

Cops are usually the last people you'd trust to be shooting though.

If you run out of ammo, that's a very bad situation. If the cops run out of ammo, it's probably their own damn fault.

1. So you trust criminals more than cops?2. What about innocent victims being killed because they cannot find ammunition to defend themselves. Do you think that is a good thing?3. The question assumes that the cops ran out of ammunition because of the scarcity. Although its happening more to rural or small police departments, some have been unable to afford or find ammunition because of the current shortage.

dittybopper:There is a fairly large subset of gun owners who just *LOVE* to "knife perceived traitors in the back", so a gun store that relies on repeat customers has to tread lightly for fear of being perceived as a traitor by a large number of their customers.

So you're admitting that gun owners, as a group, are reactionary nutbars?

You're begging the question: Your assumption is automatically that less use of deadly force = innocent victim or police officer killed. That's not necessarily the outcome, and you know it.

Actually you entirely missing my point. You indicated that scarcity was a good thing - "I hope it was for the purpose of causing scarcity - that would be the best use of my tax dollars EVAR",and my question to you is whether you thought it would be a good thing if that scarcity caused an innocent victim or police officer to get killed ? - but you wouldn't answer.

As for your question, if scarcity prevents an innocent suspect from getting killed - that is great news. I am in favor of innocent persons not getting killed. Including innocent suspects, innocent victims, innocent police officers, innocent dogs, cats, etc.